Three items today:

2. The fact that Al
Gore continued to grow tobacco for years after his sister's death from
lung cancer finally makes it onto CBS News, but only to report how
"Gore dismisses that attack as politics, an attempt to sully a man so
close to the President he feels free to interrupt him."

3. The October
7 edition of Notable Quotables. If you make it to the end, you'll
learn which anchor uttered this phrase last week caught by MRC analyst
Steve Kaminski: "You'll be a wheezer long before you're a
geezer."

"For days
President Clinton has been dominating the news with his efforts to ease
the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians. Today, Bob Dole decided to
step onto center stage with a harshly worded attack not only on the
administration's work in the Middle East, but its entire foreign policy.
Senator Dole called the past three years rudderless and illusionary. He
claimed the President has squandered American power. The administration
has so far answered softly, but says there is more to come."

Reporter John
Cochran went on the tag the speech as "scathing." He reported:
"In a scathing critique of Clinton foreign policy, Dole rolled off a
long list of what he called failures, going back to the 1993 effort to
restore order in Somalia."

What was the
administration's response that earned Sawyer's "soft"
description? CBS and NBC viewers heard Press Secretary Mike McCurry's
retort. He played off Spiro Agnew's "nattering nabobs of
negativism" line (not generally considered "soft") and
asserted that Dole foreign policy advisers are "nattering naysayers
of gloom." ABC didn't show viewers McCurry's soundbite.

On NBC Nightly
News, David Bloom also used the term "harsh" to describe Dole's
speech: "It was Dole's harshest critique yet of what he called
Clinton's failed foreign policy." But a bit later in his story Bloom
put the tone in a better light, noting that "After reviewing his
speech over breakfast with retired General Colin Powell, Dole chose his
words carefully. His tone was measured. He was playing politics, but he
wanted to appear presidential."

Braver:
"He's in on every key White House meeting and decision. Just last
month in his role as environmental guru, Gore convinced the President to
create a controversial national monument in Utah. Of late, Republican
have attacked him for making a convention speech about his sister's
death from lung cancer caused by smoking."
Gore at Democratic convention: "It hurt very badly to watch her
savaged by that terrible disease."
Braver: "While for several years after her death he let tobacco be
grown on land he owned. Gore dismisses that attack as politics, an
attempt to sully a man so close to the President he feels free to
interrupt him."
Gore, going to microphone in front of Clinton: "Could I add a word
since..."
Braver: "But above all Gore sees his job as making the President
look good. And he's been amply rewarded. It's no secret that if Bill
Clinton is re-elected he wants Al Gore to succeed him."

So, CBS
acknowledges the whole premise of Gore's emotional convention speech was a
fraud, but it's wrong to even raise the subject because he's so powerful
he can cut in front of the President at a podium.

The October 7 edition of Notable Quotables. If you make it to the end,
you'll learn which anchor uttered this phrase last week caught by MRC
analyst Steve Kaminski: "You'll be a wheezer long before you're a
geezer."

Notable
Quotables

October
7, 1996 (Vol. Nine; No. 21)

Really
Helping Dole Make It A Close Race?

"Reporters
want nothing more than, this year and four years ago, to have a horse
race. That's what we're in love with, is the fight, the close call....So
it's in our best interest to make it look close, to make Bob Dole look
good." -- Chicago Tribune reporter Ellen Warren on CNN's
Crossfire, September 20.

Reality Check:

"The former
Senator argued that voters have a choice between two different visions of
government... The ex-deficit hawk returned to the centerpiece of his
campaign, a 15 percent tax cut. Campaign aides claim they have private
polls showing President Clinton vulnerable on the tax issue. That's the
reason for this attack. But between now and election day the Republican
nominee has to do more than criticize. He's got to sell the Dole
plan." -- Reporter Phil Jones, September 24 CBS Evening News.

NBC reporter David Bloom: "So now Dole, who's complained about
Clinton's campaign of fear, is taking a similar tack." Bob Dole:
"Secrets, secrets. Remember the FBI files that went to the White
House."
Bloom: "With the election just six weeks away, calling Bill Clinton a
liberal might soon look tame." -- September 24 NBC Nightly News.

"The same cynicism that may deflect attacks on Clinton seems to work
directly against Bob Dole, with many voters here calling his 15 percent
tax cut idea a political gimmick....Many of the voters we spoke with
blamed Gingrich for last year's government shutdown, for a mean-spirited
attitude generally, and for attempts to trim Medicare specifically."
-- ABC's Dean Reynolds in Michigan, Sept. 23 World News Tonight.

Just
Three Months Until Bryant's Contract Expires

"Comments
that he has made to others would seem to indicate a certain degree of, and
not unjustifiably, a certain degree of anger, bitterness. Has he expressed
that to you?"

"Why do you
suppose it is that one year after his acquittal, most white Americans at
least, cannot accept the idea that he's out walking around free, refuse to
let him live his life?" -- Bryant Gumbel to O.J. Simpson lawyer
Johnnie Cochran in part one of three day interview series, September 30 Today.

Gumbel: "Do you think if those two victims had been, say, Marguerite,
his first wife, and Al Cowlings, his best friend, that there would have
been the same amount [of media attention]?" Johnnie Cochran:
"Absolutely not. And I think any person who wants to be honest about
it would say the same thing." Gumbel: "Why? Because America
doesn't care about black victims?"

"Most white
Americans still charge that O.J.'s jurors didn't do their job. You talk
about a rush to judgment. They would claim the same. They would claim the
verdict was race-based. Do you think their judgment of those jurors is
race-based?"

"Do you
think O.J. will ever get a fair shake in this country? Will people ever
let him live out his life and accept the fact that he was acquitted?"
-- Some of Gumbel's questions to Cochran, October 2.

Clueless
in Chicago

"In her
Wednesday Commentary page column, Linda Bowles stated that President
Clinton and his former campaign adviser Dick Morris both were `guilty of
callous unfaithfulness to their wives and children.' Neither man has
admitted to being or been proven to have been unfaithful. The Tribune
regrets the error." -- Chicago Tribune, September 5.

Tax
Cuts: Crazy Candy

"Pollsters,
pundits, look at these numbers and they'll say this thing is
locked....There is no way Dole can overcome this. Why doesn't he just
accept it and be himself? Try to hold the Republican Congress and get rid
of this book, and get rid of these crazy 15 percent tax cuts and speak
from the heart?" -- NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert to Dole
campaign manager Scott Reed on CNBC's Tim Russert, September 22.

"Americans
are forever grumbling about high taxes and big government. You'd think
promising a tax cut would be like giving away free candy. What's not to
like? Everybody knows what happens when you eat too much candy. You get
cavities. You get sick. You get fat. A big tax cut may feel good but it
can cause problems...`Candy?' Dole says. `No thank you,' the voters reply.
`We're feeling much better now and we don't want to get sick again.' Dr.
Dole and Dr. Kemp are supply-side specialists. They have a revolutionary
theory that says `Candy is good for you! More tax cuts, more growth. More
growth, more income.' Now what a terrific theory! And so what if
Democratic doctors say they are a couple of quacks. Gene [Randall], have
some candy!" -- CNN analyst Bill Schneider on Inside Politics,
September 14.

Welfare
Reform: Hate That, Too

"Even your
own aides, many of them, and advisers feel that the bill is too extreme.
Two of your advisers recently quit. Under the new bill a 60 year old
federal guarantee of aid to needy families will end. It's been estimated
as many as a million children will go hungry. What are you going to do
about that?" -- Barbara Walters to Bill Clinton, September 20 20/20.

"In light of
the new welfare reform bill, do you think the children need more prayers
than ever before?" -- Bryant Gumbel to Children's Defense Fund leader
Marian Wright Edelman, September 23 Today.

Rapping
the Republicans on Rape

"I think,
generally speaking, most people would agree that the partisan, that the
smear tactics -- I mean, the going after the family, and since when has
President Clinton said anything about Elizabeth Dole? It hasn't happened,
and yet you see the Republicans attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton, who I
agree has made mistakes, but they [Republicans] have no boundaries, and I
think that yes, both parties are guilty of using smear tactics -- it goes
back to as I said the origin of American politics -- but I think the
Republicans are quite frankly, better at it than the Democrats, and I
think most people see that and believe that....Why don't you recognize
some of the hypocrisy on the part of the Republicans?....Well, for
starters, a rape victim up on the podium in San Diego when the Republicans
oppose abortion." --PBS To the Contrary host Bonnie Erbe responding
to conservative criticism on Westwood One's Jim Bohannon Show,
August 30.

I
Thought White People Were the Paranoid Anti-Government Wackos

"As Dick
[Gregory] was saying, a conspiratorial thing, something that is genocidal
that many African-Americans whisper and talk about that, or was it simply
an economic situation that they thought this was a quick way to make money
to send to the Contras?" -- MSNBC InterNight host Ed Gordon to
activist Joe Madison on the San Jose Mercury News report that the CIA sold
crack to fund the Contras, September 19.

"[CIA
Director John] Deutch reiterated last week that he has asked the agency's
inspector general to review the Mercury's charges. The Justice Department
has also launched a probe. But if Deutch thinks anyone in black America is
going to take the wordof those two organizations, he's mistaken. Black
Americans have been the targets of so much hostility that many of them
would not put it past their own government to finance the war against
communism by addicting thousands of people." -- Time national
correspondent Jack E. White, September 30 issue.

Rhymin'
Rather

"Some of the
first hard medical evidence is in tonight for teenage smokers who think it
takes years for cigarettes to damage their health. Bottom line -- don't
hold your breath. You'll be a wheezer long before you're a geezer."
-- Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, September 25.

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